University of Maryland School of Public Policy doctoral student Emily Dobson has been selected as a 2025 grantee by the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, one of only twenty scholars to receive the prestigious research grant for the 2024-2025 award year.
Dobson’s dissertation, “How Cash for Parents Becomes Opportunity for Kids: Examining Spending of the Child Tax Credit,” explores how families use the Child Tax Credit and the ways this financial support influences child outcomes. Her research will add to the growing body of scholarship examining the real-world impact of policy interventions aimed at supporting families and reducing economic inequality.
Designing effective child-focused policy requires understanding the mechanisms that link family income with child well-being.Emily Dobson
“Designing effective child-focused policy requires understanding the mechanisms that link family income with child well-being,” Dobson said. “My dissertation leverages the unique features of the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit to examine the causal links between cash transfers and child welfare, with the goal of informing effective child well-being policy.”
Dobson’s work also explores how household decision making affects child-focused policy design, particularly the extent to which parents make spending choices that directly benefit their children’s welfare—an ongoing debate in the field of economic policy.
“The awards are competitive,” said Ayse Akincigil, speaking on behalf of the Horowitz Foundation. “The Foundation’s Trustees consider these proposals to be particularly strong, and vibrant examples of how policy research can help meet the challenges of today’s complex society.”
The Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy was established in 1997 to support policy-related research in the social sciences. Each year, the Foundation awards twenty grants of $10,000 to doctoral students whose dissertation proposals have been approved by their committees.
“I am honored and humbled that my dissertation was selected for a research grant from the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy,” Dobson said. “I am deeply grateful to the faculty and mentors who have supported my work, and am excited for the opportunities this award brings.”
